2007 FINAL LIST

I finally finished putting together my list of books read in 2007. The final tally was 76. My favorite was "The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro. The biggest disappointment was "Moby Dick." Well, maybe just the middle half. The first quarter was great. The last quarter was tolerable (or maybe my opinion had sunk too low to be recovered).

Catch Up

I can't believe it's been 9 days since I posted. I think I burned out. I've been doing other things. I've got a couple of Christmas gifts I'm making, so I've spent alot of time doing that. And I take Time Magazine and read them cover to cover. I got behind and have been working to catch up. I'm not very politically minded and this magazine is the closest I come to political awareness. I like to think I halfway know what's going on in the non-fiction world.

I also worked on my financial spreadsheets. I made a new one for my book purchases. I went through all of my bank and credit card statements and added it up. $461.32. It was a lot of work getting all of that together. But I had a brainstorm. I applied for a B&N credit card. So from here on out all of my book purchases will go on that card. And nothing but books.

The Magician's Assistant

The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett

Sabine has recently lost her husband, Parsifal, after 6 months of marriage. He was a handsome and charming magician and she had been his assistant for 20 years. She had also been in love with him all those years. The problem was he was gay. After his partner Phan died, he married Sabine so she would be entitled to the estate he and his partner left behind.

After his death, Sabine learns he had been lying to her about his family for the entire time she has known him. After the will is read, Parsifal's family come to visit Sabine. When he left home he broke contact, so they are desperite for contact with what he had become. That means embracing Sabine. And Sabine is desperate to learn all she can about the secrets her husband had kept from her. So she journeys to his childhood home in Nebraska. Then she learns more secrets than she bargained on.

Challenges

I've been neglectful of my blog---again. I've joined two new challenges and have had to co-ordinate my lists. It's been a chore and involved spreadsheets. Along with my book clubs and reading all the Pulitzer winners, I also have to get in books out of the Book of Great Books. So for the Index Librorum Liberorum I've chosen 8.
1.) Candide by Voltaire
2.) Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
3.) Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
4.) The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
5.) The Prince by Niccolὸ Machaivelli
6.) The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
7.) Justine by Marquis de Sade
8.) Paradise Lost by Milton

And along with that, I had to rethink my Unread Authors Challenge. By the time the challenge started I had already read 3 of the books. But that's no sweat. I have oodles of authors I haven't read yet. So here's the final choices.
1.) The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
2.) The Locket by Richard Paul Evans
3.) Rose's Garden by Carrie Brown
4.) Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller
5.) The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett
6.) O Pioneers! by Willa Cather

Looking forward to reading these.

Next Reading List

I"m 4/5th's of the way through "The Executioner's Song". It's 1,000 pages and I've been on it a while, but I keep putting it down to read something else. Like "Crime and Punishment" for a book club. Or the entire Harry Potter series. But now it's the end of the month and both of my book clubs are starting new books. So I've got a new TBR list for September. So far I have "A Passage to India" for TheClassicsClub, "The Echo Maker" for Pulitzer_literature, "The Magician's Assistant" for the Unread Authors Challenge and "Empire Falls" for The BookAwardChallenge. And then there's "Don Quixote" for the Book of Great Books goal. That one looks to be a doozy.

And on top of that, I've began making the afghans I'm giving out at Christmas. I've made one and have three more to go. I'm also cross-stitching "Footprints" for my step-mother. Looks like house-cleaning will have to take a backseat.

Reading Poll

An Associated Press-Ipsos poll says the average person has read 7 books this year. That makes me 6 years ahead of everyone.

Harry Potter Completed

Hot diggity!!! I finished the series before any secrets leaked. But I'm afraid I'm going through withdrawal now. I had already read the first book so my latest spree only involved the last six. I've been reading them at the expense of everything else so now I have 400 e-mails to catch up with.

Wanda's Vacation

The Great Book Marathon of 2007 is over. Wanda comes back to work Monday. I return to my office where I actually have to work. Bummer.
During 55 hours spread over 6 days, I got quite a bit off my TBR. I read 6 books and 1 play during this period.

1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
2. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
3. The Known World by Edward P Jones
4. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
5. The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith
6. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
7. A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen

I got off work at 1pm Saturday and created a spreadsheet document on Google. I have 64 books accumulated. The spreadsheet lists all my TBR under the category under which they fall.

1. Book of Great Books personal goal
2. TheClassicsClub on Oprah
3. Pulitzer_literature on Yahoo
4. BookAwardsChallenge
5. Oprah selections
6. In the house---meaning books I've picked up and haven't read yet so I better read them because if I don't it's my money I'm wasting. Really, just drop the money in the trash and save the shelf space. Duh!!!

I've decided I cannot buy anymore books until this list is cut in half. Unless I need something for the Pulitzer or BookAwardsChallenge. Oh, goody. A loophole.

Update

I haven't been here in a while. I haven't finished anything worth talking about. I stalled out with Moby Dick and read a historical romance mystery and a contemporary mystery. Both were OK but not worth sending my Internet buddies searching for. But now I've gotten back into Moby Dick and will finish it this week. Probably today or tomorrow. I'm also about 99% dome with the afghan I'm doing now. When it's done I'm going to make my daisy kitchen curtains. I've had the material around 9 months. It's time dont'cha think?

Anyway, my job has blocked alot of my favorite sites so I stay off the web at work. I tried both of my TCC links and found them inaccessible. So I quit trying before I got to Blogger. I don't know if I can get in or not but I don't think it's a big deal. I'll just do it from home.

However, they didn't block my Spanish lesson sites. So, to see the glass half-full aspect, I'll be using my free time at work to learn Spanish. It'll pay off in the long haul.

USA TODAY

USA Today is celebrating it's 25th anniversary by compiling 25 lists over the nest 25 weeks. Week #3 is th most 25 influential books of the last 25 years.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/top25-books.htm

I only have two of these. "A Brief History of Time" by Steven Hawkings and "Harry Potter and the Sorcerors Stone" by JK Rowling. I had "Iacocca" at one time but I must have gotten rid of it during one of my infrequent book thinnning projects.

And a coworker had "Left Behind" in the office for about 6 weeks. I read it in two days. She never read it.

So, naturally, I've picked a couple more of them I want to read. Cold Mountain, Beloved, Fast Food Nation, The Deep End of the Ocean....OK. More than a couple. You know, if I needed more books on my TBR list, all I have to do is search my LibraryThing catalog or go through my "Book of Great Books." Why do I have to keep finding new books online?

New Books

I've done it again. Gone book-shopping. I picked up 4 yesterday. I found a biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine at the Dusty Cover for $6.50. It was printed in 1977 and sold for $12.95. It's in great shape and the miraculous detail is it still has a dust cover. I'm pretty happy with that. I got "Elizabeth I" at Best Buy but I didn't watch it because I spent 6 hours reading "Eleanor of Aquitaine." I'm not sure at what point in my life I decided I couldn't read and watch TV at the same time. I used to.

I also went to Barnes and Noble and picked up the story of the Essex. It's called "In the Heart of the Sea." It's the true story of the whaleship that was sunk by a whale. "Moby Dick" was based on this story. I'm looking forward to readng this one.

I also picked up "The Secret Life of Bees" and "Vanity Fair." I have a TBR list but I keep on getting new books and just ignore the stack I've got piled up on an endtable. If this keeps up, I'll never get to read "The Other Boleyn Girl."

Three Fast Reads

I've managed to put away three quick books so far this month. The first was "A Shot in the Dark" by Gale Copeland. It's about police photography. It has some realy gruesome pictures. The second was a Time-Life book about Pompeii. Both of these I got at the library.

The third book was "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". I picked it up at The Dusty Cover for three bucks. It seemed to me it was just like the movie so I'm wondering if it is just a movie tie-in version or if the filmmakers followed the book that closely. At any rate, it didn't increase my appreciation of Harry Potter. Cute series, but no great shake.

Kimmie

New Site

I bought three new books on the way home from work last night. I ordered "House of Mirth" two and a half weeks ago. It came in Monday so I finally made the time to go get it.

I got a new Jack the Ripper book to go with my collection. I watch the crime shelves for Jack and this one has never been there. It never crossed my mind they bring in books just to put them on sale. Live and learn.

And the last book is just a little thriller I got for $4.98. It's "In the Cut" by Susanna Moore. The Meg Ryan movie is based on it.

Anyway, I went to LibraryThing to catalog them. Well, they didn't register so I went trying to find out why not. I didn't, but I did find a nifty site. It's whatshouldireadnext.com. You enter a book you like and it will pull up a list of similar books. I'll be happy when I get my TBR list done and can use the site. That is, if I quit adding to my TBR list.

Kimmie

My New Spreadsheet

I found the spreadsheets and immediately had to do one. I've listed all of the books I have to read from B&N's Book of Great Books. Then I listed the books The Classics Club has read. And, as if I didn't have anything else to do, I became very interested in a couple of the books they read before I joined. The Bridge on the Drina in particular. Oh, well. I'll just have to rearrange my schedule. I'll just have to use my Friday's at Greenshadows exclusively for books. Let the Spanish study fall where it may.